


Growing up

by Sonamae



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Have some headcanon, Kid Fic, Kids growing up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-10 02:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonamae/pseuds/Sonamae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All kids have to grow up, right?  Even if it's hard, or confusing, or if they didn't have the best circumstances.  Dave and John had to grow up before they could play Sburb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Growing Up A Strider

**Author's Note:**

> This is just me playing with some headcanons and having kid feelings in between working on other things. If you see any typos or anything I'm sorry, I have a habit of not looking up I type.

The first day at daycare when Bro got his first part time job wasn't something Dave had fond memories of.  Bro's pick-up truck was in a long line of other cars and trucks and he was aggravated so he just parked in the middle of the line, got out, and helped Dave down while he cursed under his breath.  Dave was still little for his age and still terrified of everything outside of their apartment at that point, which was okay back then because Bro had said so.  He was allowed to be shy until he hit the age of six, then he had to man up quick.  Bro let him hold his hand as he walked Dave up to the entrance and up to the front desk.  While he signed in, Dave looked around at the weirdest room he'd ever seen.  
  
 Shit was all kinds of crazy, toys thrown everywhere and dull colors up the bizznasty.  He couldn't stand it, he was much more at easy with silvers and colors so vibrant they were eye searing without his shades... then again everything was eye searing without his shades. "Alright little man, you're all signed up." Bro got Dave's attention and knelt down with his arms held out for a hug.  Dave hugged him without question, it was rare to get a hug from Bro that wasn't a trick.  Public hugs were always just that, hugs. "Who's my cool kid?" Bro asked when Dave pulled back and adjusted his sunglasses.  
  
 "Me man, totally me." Dave answered as his brother gave him a fist bump.  
  
 "Check list.  Shades?" Bro asked with a raised eyebrow.  
  
 "Check."  
  
 "Backpack?" Dave lifted the straps and nodded. "Lunch?"  
  
 "Check."  
  
 "Extra clothes?"  
  
 "Double check."  
  
 "Good, now, what did we agree on concerning swearing?" Bro crossed his arms and Dave mimicked him.  
  
 "It's cool to do it in the house, but don't go up and spew nasty shi-stuff." Dave quickly corrected himself. "Don't go saying nasty stuff in front of anyone but you." Dave nodded in triumph and there was the flash of a smirk on Bro's face before it twitched back to normal.  
  
 "That a boy.  Be good, I'll be back in a few hours, don't set shit on fire." Bro stood up and ruffled his hair before he left.  Dave watched him go through the glass and waved when Bro raised his hand and pulled his truck out of the parking lot.  Dave was almost six and he would not start crying, hell he just turned five so you needed to man up.  He waited by the window for several minutes and recited the number his bro gave him for emergencies before a hand on his shoulder jerked him out of his thoughts.  The lady who had been at the front desk was smiling down at him.  
  
 "Davey, sweetie?" Her voice might have sweet, but Dave didn't trust anyone who could sneak up on him OR called him Davey. "You need to take your sunglasses off indoors honey."  
  
\--  
  
 Dirk Strider was excited about having a job, but not as excited as he was to go pick up his little brother.  He hated saying it, but he missed the little brat.  He kept turning around during his shift expecting Dave to be there, asking to get picked up or to play airplane or just complaining about something.  He was still at that cute age where shit like that was fucking precious so he let him, though he had told him it wouldn't last.  The daycare he'd checked out had said they'd be perfectly fine with Dave's condition, that he'd get to wear his sunglasses all day and he wouldn't get one of his light induced migraines or weird stares from the other kids.  
  
 Yet when Dirk walked into the building, Dave was sitting at a table all by himself looking like he was about to cry with his face scrunched and eyes squeezed shut.  He also didn't have his sunglasses on.  What the actual flaming fucking gorilla shit?  
  
 "Dave?" Dirk's voice cracked with anger.  His brother looked up and his eyes were blood shot as he squinted even harder just to be able to see him. "Dave, where are your shades?" Dirk knelt down when Dave ran over, arms wrapped around the five year old without a second thought.  
  
 "Ms. Pendy said you can't wear sunglasses inside.  I told her about my thing and she said it didn't matter 'cause I'd get in trouble." Dave muttered. "Bro, my head hurts." Dirk scooped Dave up after shrugging off his jacket and tossing it over his brother's head. "Ms. Pendy has my shades, she said I could get them back when you came to pick me up." He sounds like he could fall asleep and be out for days and Dirk wants to stab this woman through the forehead.  Repeatedly.  With her ugly desk pens.  Dave tugged the jacket over his head and snuffled, face buried in Dirk's chest while he stood up and stomped toward the front desk to sign his brother out and get the little dudes shades back.  
  
 A line had been crossed, a line that should never have even been gone near.  Dirk Strider's baby brother had been harmed in some way, hell was about to be raised.  
  
\--  
  
 A woman named Jo-Anna watched Dave for the next few days until his headache finally went away after he saw a doctor, and Bro said he didn't have to go back to day care ever again.  Dave had asked him what that meant for when it was time to go to school, and Bro had assured him everything would be okay.  In fact, soon Jo-Anna wouldn't even need to watch him every day while Dirk was at work.  He said he was going to get a lot of money coming in.  
  
 It was around that time that Dave realized he hadn't actually had to take his shades off in that classroom on a sunny Texas day in a building with mostly glass walls, and that Ms. Pendy was lying about him getting in trouble if he hadn't.  It was also when Dave learned about a thing called law suits.  
  
\--  
  
 Dave Strider hated going to a private school even more than he hated going to a public school.  For one thing, more people bothered him about his shades and his condition _there_ than they did in public, at least there if he told a kid to fuck off they left him alone.  Here, he's been sent to the dean's office more times for defending himself than anywhere else he's been.  
  
 Also, no one fucking likes Valentine's day.  Shit's bull-tastic kinds of ironic and hilarious and he'd always gotten cards for everyone, even the fuckers he hated.  
  
 When he got home he threw his backpack against the wall so hard he could hear something inside it break, but he didn't care.  He was pissed and he wanted to shatter everything that would explode under his hands, but before he could throw some shitty glass case full of buttons, Bro had snatched it out of his hands and restrained him. "David!  What the actual fuck have I told you about breaking shit without prior notice?" Bro shouted before pushing Dave to the couch. "This shit is expensive!" Bro flash stepped away to put the jar in a safe, out of reach area before he stepped back.  
  
 Dave stomped back and threw himself face first against the couch, his shades smushed against his cheeks so much that it hurt. "School sucks." Dave moaned through the couch cushion.  
  
 "Yeah, but you never break shit just because it sucks." Bro flopped down at his desk and picked up the massive roll of fabric he left in the living room in one hand and his scissors in the other.  He'd started that puppet site a few weeks ago, and now his free time was wrapped up in 'filling orders.'  Dave looked up eventually, peering over the top of his shades as his brother started cutting out patterns and setting them into neat piles.  
  
 "... Bro, can I ask you something?" Dave mumbled.  
  
 "You just did, but go ahead and take another shot at something a bit more intelligent." Bro didn't turn around, he didn't even pause in a single cut.  
  
 "Well..." Dave sat up, thinking over his question. "Can a guy like another guy... more than like they're bro's?  Can he like him like... romantically?" Dave asked.  
  
 "Yeah.  Girls too." Bro wadded up excess fabric strips and threw them into the bin beside his desk. "It's called being gay little man, that or bi-sexual... or pansexual, shit can be pretty confusing." Dave raised his eyebrows in confusion and Bro continued. "There are not enough hours in the day to explain that shit to you little man, you've got Google." Bro gave the barest hint of a shrug and finally turned around. "Now, why did you ask me that?"  
  
 Dave sat up and looked toward his bedroom, feeling his Bro's eyes burn into his back. "Some... some loser kid at school just said you couldn't give a guy a Valentine's day card because that was a sin against nature or some bull shit." Dave was startled when his Bro started laughing.  It would have almost terrified him if he actually let it sink in, but he couldn't tell if Bro was laughing at him or at the kid from school.  
  
 "Yeah, that's it, online schooling." Bro stated before turning the chair back around to his desk.  Dave had never loved him more than he did right then.  
  
\--  
  
 True to his word, Bro enrolled Dave into some weird online school that was famous for 'Across the World Interaction.'  Dave had yet to meet anyone that spoke anything other than perfect Americanized English, but it was still pretty cool for being boring as hell.  He was doing some extra credit project where he had to work in another group, which normally just ended with him doing all the work and the other ass holes taking the credit.  He didn't give a shit, he B.S.'d most of the reports, half awake and drinking stolen Irish coffee his brother would beat his ass for.  
  
 Right now he had to get three other idiots to tag onto the list of names for some shitty science project, and he was about to open the list of other kids when his computer pinged at him that he had an email.  He couldn't resist answering it, he'd gotten a sense of hilarious glee whenever Bro came in and caught him not doing his schoolwork.  It was sort of a race between Dave's skill with a mouse and Bro's ninja ability to smack Dave from across the room without actually getting up.  
  
 The dick.  
  
 The email was from an unknown sender, but the subject line catches his eye.  'hey want to work on project 7.10 together?'  
  
 Dave raised an eyebrow and clicked the email with a bit too much force, drawing Bro into the room with a flashstep with a Katana at the ready. "Homework?" He asked, ready to strife Dave's ass back to work.  
  
 "Yeah, some dork wants to do a project with me." Dave shrugged it off, though inside he was bouncing around like a three year old on a sugar rush.  Someone on the internet wanted to be his partner, he didn't have to look, they'd be smart and not stupid as fucking shit and do something for once!  Then Bro flung a smuppet at him and he had to block it before it clattered to the keyboard and he remembered that his life sucked. "I'm working!" Dave shouted, but Bro was already gone.  
  
 Dave let out as heavy sigh and read over the page, eyebrows raising higher and higher as he went.  
  
 'hey there!  i'm john egbert from your earth space science class, i saw you hadn't gotten a partner for the group lab yet and i was wondering if you wanted to join me and two other people.  we just need one more person, and we saw you do a lot of music on your profile.  want to join us?  my pesterchum is ghostyTrickster, if you want to join just let me know.'  
  
 And that was how Dave Strider met John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, and Jade Harley.


	2. Growing up an Egbert

The first time John really cried as a baby, his father had no idea what to do. He came home with Dad and he didn't wail into the night like Dad had expected him to. Three full days of on and off sleeping with the expectations of none and he was starting to think John was a miracle. John would get a bit fussy, sure, but he never really started crying. So when 3:36 am rolled around on the fourth day and Dad was woken up by the loudest scream he'd ever heard, he panicked. He'd dived out of bed, smacked his knee on his nightstand and knocked the lamp over as he rushed to the crib. For a moment he'd just stared down at John because he'd had no idea what was going on.

John had kicked the covers off and his face was beat red as he just... screamed. It took a few seconds for Dad to reach into the crib and scoop him up, cradling him and checking if maybe he needed a diaper change. Which he didn't.

Maybe he just needed to be bounced a little? That worked when he got fussy. So Dad tried it, and it only made the screaming louder, so he stopped and picked up the pacifier from the crib and put it in John's mouth. Maybe?

No. He didn't want that.

Okay so... rocking chair?

Okay less screaming but still crying and blubbering and... and clinging. Oh.

Oh!

That was when Dad Egbert figured out that sometimes... babies have bad dreams, and sometimes they just want to be held and kept safe and... wow John was just the cutest thing when he got all snuffly before he fell asleep. This baby thing was not something Dad was used to, he had no idea what he was doing and had no idea how to figure out what to do after that. John fell asleep pretty fast though, and then he slept until noon and it was the weirdest thing. John Egbert didn't cry often, but the first time he did it made Dad Egbert realize that he never wanted to hear his son cry ever again.

\--

When John was three years old, he broke his arm and lost his two front teeth.

Dad had let him go into the backyard first for play time, and he was going to be right out after him. He just had to put the food in the fridge. It was a two minute job, John wouldn't get hurt in two minutes.

Only as he shut the refrigerator door he heard a scream that chilled his bones and ran outside so fast his hat flew off. John was laying on the ground near the swing set, arm pulled to his chest as he tried so hard not to cry. Tears were falling down his face anyway, snot running from his nose as he moaned. Dad hurried over and scooped his son up, careful of his arm.

"Easy there, you'll be alright. Come on, let's get you inside," Dad let John turn his face into his chest, his body shaking as he let out a cry and quickly tried to cover it. The screen door rattled open and then shut as Dad brought John through the house to sit him on the counter. "Where does it hurt, let me see."

"I'm thorry my thoes god dirdy." John said in a blubbery sniffle. Dad felt his heart lurch in his chest.

"No, they're fine. Are you okay? How bad does it hurt, can you move your arm?" John shook his head no and sniffled again. "Oh dear, well let me get you to the doctor."

\--

When John sat down on the table and let the doctors poke and prod and pinch and move him, all Dad could say was 'I'm so proud of you, Son.' John had never smiled brighter in his entire three years of life. The two missing teeth just made it all the more heartbreaking.

\--

John started writing things on his walls when he turned seven. They are all hurtful things, and Dad watched his son do it with a water marker before bedtime. He'd walked in and asked John 'What's wrong?' but John had said nothing and asked to be read a bedtime story. Then came the clown drawings.

There were so many things Dad wanted to say that he couldn't get out, so many feelings and emotions that words couldn't express properly if John was just going to ignore his problem. Dad hugged him close and read him the best bedtime story he could.

\--

The day John came home with a broken nose and glasses, Dad felt anger like he'd never known. John seemed so proud of himself, even as his father signed him up for online courses.

"You should have seen it dad! He was three times bigger than me and he called me all these horrible names, but I wouldn't back down!" John said emphatically through a wet rag of ice. "I told him that he could call me whatever he wanted because I didn't care, and then he hit me." Dad's fingers stuttered across the keys.

"Is that why you have all that writing on your wall?" He asked. "Bullies?" John didn't seem to hear him, still ranting about his day.

"The police officer at school had to drag him off me, but I didn't cry. No way, you'd have been so proud of me dad!" He turned and beamed at his father, and Dad could feel his heart breaking.

"Oh, John, I'm always proud of you." Dad reached out and hugged him close by the arm. "You make me the proudest father to ever proud." He smiled when John blushed and laughed, trying to get away from his fathers squeezing hug.


End file.
